ST Engineering Antycip provides 360º visual simulation to HR Wallingford

Pilot training at the British center HR Wallingford has reached a new level with ST Engineering Antycip, which has provided two sets of seven projectors Barco 4K for 360º viewing.

Based in Oxfordshire (United Kingdom), HR Wallingford designs smart, resilient solutions in the natural environment to help live and work more sustainably with water. For this it has physical modeling laboratories that house, among other facilities, wave basins, a modeling area for river flood plains and another for tsunamis, as well as the Ship simulation center from United Kingdom.

In addition to two ship bridge simulators, fully operational and with a 360º field of vision, This center has two tow bridge simulators latest generation, called Defeatedr y Romeo; two portable tow stations (Mike y Lima), and a VTS simulator (ship traffic services).

In order to improve the image quality and object recognition of display systems Charlie y Oscar, especially in the context of a new visual application that was being developed in the company, it was necessary to install a higher resolution screen.

another demand, as you remember John Mould, business development director ST Engineering Antycip, “was to ensure the longevity of the hardware, which made solid-state projection technologies desirable, in order to replace their lamp-based units and avoid consumables in the future”.

ST Engineering Antycip was in charge of identifying 4K resolution laser equipment that allow a 360° projection, “also covering the height of the cockpit simulator screens, along with screen calibration systems that offered a high-quality and seamless image, with easy integration with existing HR Wallingford visualization software”, explains James Clarke, technical director of the ships and dredging group of this company.

Ship simulators are used to evaluate the layout of new port and terminal developments; to investigate the impact of new ships on existing ports or terminals; for the continuing professional development of marine pilots and tugboat captains, as well as to recreate and scrutinize possible accidents and incidents in ports.

To achieve, “It is essential that pilots and tug captains are able to use realistic, high-quality models of their actual port.”, Clarke assures. For this reason, both the HR Wallingford and ST Engineering Antycip teams specified two projector arrays, each composed of seven teams Barco F90 4K and a system of automatic calibration Vioso, that digitally corrected light paths to create a continuous 360° image and improved the uniformity of screen images.

Barco's projection hardware features “a 90° angled lens -Mold points out., coping with required image size, that operated under the structure of the simulators' elevated bridge platform. “This projector model also allows you to see 4K resolution thanks to high-bandwidth electronics.”.

Regarding the selection of Vioso technology, Mold notes that “it was easy, since your VR and simulation software has been successfully implemented in many of our simulator projects to date and we knew that its calibration data could be applied directly to the rendering application, at user runtime, to correct and modify the visual outputs of each of the GPUs”.

According to Clarke, after installation, HR Wallingford's ship simulators benefit from brighter, higher-resolution images that “make the experience even more realistic for users. In particular, identification and contrast of visual navigation aids have improved considerably, for both day and night simulations, along with the greater field of view provided by Barco projector systems”.